Sindri

Sindri is a word that refers to three distinct concepts. It refers to an ethnicity, a language, and a culture, all of which belong to the Sindri Nomads seen through Bhustan and Northern Kailla. The Sindri Nomads are one of the oldest cultures in Bhustan, starting out as a mobile moving culture after the First Sindri Exile. This began the Period Of Spring Soldiers.

'''The Period Of Spring Soldiers '''The original Sindri were a handful of families from the Aljulin Oasis in the southeast of Bhustan, numbering a few thousand. Forced out, they became a minor military force, which made raids on a handful of settled people in local oasis. The Sindri population gradually grew, and with it they made a few small conquests around the Aljulin Oasis. The society began to fracture some, with the creation of professional soldiers, professional traveling merchants, and the people who lived at the oases, most of whom were farmers. They became one of the many settled tribes that had a few small oases, and were largely insignificant. Their only claim to fame were their merchants and the caravan guards that accompanied them, that were able to spread far faster than the tribe as a whole. By the end of the Period of Spring Soldiers, the Sindri were nearly two groups again, the nomadic merchants and soldiers, and the city people and sessile soldiers.

'''The Aljulin War '''The end of the Period of Spring Soldiers came quickly. The Sindri tribe attempted to expand back into Aljulin, calling it their ancestral homeland. A surprise attack was made, and a large army was able to sack the city built around the oasis, taking the minimal defenses as evidence of their successful surprise. They were then trapped in the sacked city, its oasis already poisoned, beginning the siege of Aljulin. That itself started with a prepared fire, and the few that survived that died to the poisoned oasis. Aljulin was recaptured, the oasis alchemically purified, and gradually rebuilt from the remaining underground structures. The war appeared to have devastated both sides, and the Sindri pushed for a peace treaty.

What they didn't know was that an artificial oasis and hidden city, New Aljulin had been built some distance away, and the vast majority of the citizens gradually evacuated. Aljulin was as strong as it ever was, and was able to capture every Sindri settlement within three years. They declared themselves the Great Empire of the Alji, and began fortifications, thinking themselves invincible. The few Sindri left, all of the nomadic merchants and the soldiers with them were dismissed as irrelevant. The Alji had no idea how far they had spread, and was completely unaware of the trade routes that bypassed Sindri territory entirely. Rather than cut the Sindri out of the local economies and replace them, they temporarily threw a large area into turmoil.

The tribes living in that area were not pleased with this turn of events. The Sindri were useful to them, their merchants quite likable, and being deprived of easy trade due to a faction that had been portrayed as evil by the Sindri anyways, and had demonstrated imperialist tendencies beyond any other tribe to the point of creating an actual empire was not a turn of events anyone liked. Alliances were made, and the entire area was on edge. It would take very little to start a war, and it took only five years for that to happen. A minor faction with two oases saw a pair of assassinations carried out on their political and religious leaders, and struck out at the Empire of Alji in response. It escalated quickly, and the settlements around both oases were burned to the ground, and the oases turned to oil and ignited. The alliances kicked into high gear, and no fewer than eighteen tribes attacked the Great Empire of Alji in quick succession. Foreign mercenaries were hired by the rich Sindri, including Calum shock cavalry and several Aiji alchemists.

The Great Empire of the Alji had an impressive last stand. They fought over every dune, and were forced back very slowly, killing several times their number in most every engagement. There were only a few large battles, and they won most of these, notably annihilating the Calum shock cavalry at the Battle of Muhedrin. Within fifteen years, only Aljulin and New Aljulin were left, within eighteen only New Aljulin, and on the twenty second year of the war, the war ended in a moment. The hired Aiji alchemists created an array that took nearly a day to walk around, and used the shadow of several towers for lines and curves in the center. What exactly the transformation was is still unknown - the dominant modern theory is that the nitrogen in the air was transformed to hydrogen over the entire area, following the transformation of the mortar in the walls into an oxidized carbon that could burn in a vaccuum. It was called The Iron Fist of Aij, and the end of the Alji Empire was only its first effect.

'''The Formation of the Sindri Language '''The Sindri did not reclaim that area, and it was gradually settled by many of the tribes. It became a hub of mercantile trade, of political activity, and of social life within the area, and led to the formation of the Coalition of Hyshin Tribes, that would eventually become Bhustan's early rival. As it grew, its importance for merchants led it to become one of the main stops on most every Sindri route, and a place where competition between Sindri houses was most intense. Thus, few Sindri made their home there, and its effects would manifest in a few surprising ways.

The first of these was the creation of the Sindri language. A pidgin mercantile tongue had existed for some time, but at captured Aljulin and the surrounding area this pidgin tongue began to resemble a real language. This language was picked up by all the Sindri tribes, and circulated by them throughout much of what is now Eastern Bhustan. However, outside of Aljulin and the Sindri, it was a second langauge that saw little use. Early Sindri was formed, and was a unified language, however briefly.

That changed when the Sindri gained a homeland. A small area in the far southwest of the controlled territory had a river delta and small valley that was traded to the Sindri as a whole in exchange for the creation of a trade route into Southwestern Bhustan. Following large scale irrigation, this became the Sindri Basin. It was another multicultural area, attracting people from what is now Western Bhustan as well as the east, and even bringing in Kaillan refugees on several occasions. The Sindri maintained an ethnic majority, but this was enough to lead to new linguistic development. Most notably, a writing system was established following the introduction of papermaking to the area with the Kaillan refugees. This codification, as well as the temporary settlement done by so many caravans between their trades would bring Middle Sindri into existence.

'''The Dissasociation Period '''The Sindri spread throughout all of the modern Bhustan territory gradually, and their homeland led to a somewhat lost connection to the Coalition of Hyshin Tribes. The Sindri were everywhere, and were one of the largest ethnicities in the region. The largest were the Bhustani, which controlled the northwest of the continent. All seemed well, until the foundation of Bhustan. Early Bhustan was another empire, and unlike the Great Empire of the Alji, Bhustan had allies and was well liked. It became a rival of the Hyshin Tribes, gradually began to assimilate them, and slowly took over the area.

The Coalition of Hyshin Tribes responded by starting the First Bhustani War. By the end of it, the Coalition was gone, Bhustan has reached borders similar to its modern ones, and the modern political structure was in early formation. The Sindri had made the mistake of backing teh Coalition of Hyshin Tribes, however informally, and were never forgiven for that. Tensions grew, the Sindri fell into disfavor, and the Sindri Homeland was isolated from the rest of Bhustan from a permanent border guard. It entered an early decline, tensions continued, and eventually the Sindri Basin was more an occupied territory, including a miniscule fort. The Sindri as a unified culture were falling apart, the language was falling into disuse due to the creation of Bhustani as an official language, and even the proportion of the population that was ethnically Sindri was declining.

Eventually, this would lead to the development of a bunch of dissasociated caravans, with a culture that was somewhat common but almost no political connection. All were Sindri, and that brought them together, but politically they had only the Sindri homeland, which was increasingly less important to them anyways. Moreover, the small rebellions and takeovers in Southern Bhustn coincided with this period, so the Sindri Basin became support for a militarized area more than anything else. The Four Hills Dam was erected, the Sindri Basin mostly dried up, and all unity left in Sindri culture was one catastrophe away from destruction.

'''Modern Times '''The Sindri Flood was that catastrophe. The Four Hills Dam was broken, the area flooded, the homeland basically gone. Trading routes were no longer shared, and the Sindri were a minority ethnicity with their own langauge that existed as go betweens for a large society that they didn't really fit in. Their glory was gone, and it has still never returned. The Sindri are the remnants of a great culture, and a testament to what can happen to ancient institutions in the changing modern world. Modern equilibrium has them in decline, servicing the trade needs of cities that keep getting bigger, keep getting more self sufficient, and are starting to establish non-Sindri connections.